Allan Massie is a Scottish writer who has published nearly 30 books, including a sequence of novels set in ancient Rome. His non-fiction works range from a study of Byron's travels to a celebration of Scottish rugby. He has been a political columnist for The Scotsman, The Sunday Times and The Daily Telegraph and writes a literary column for The Spectator.

Lost battles in the grammar wars

I came across this sentence in a newspaper article the other day: “They have quite forgotten the redeeming virtues of the old aristocracy, from a sense of public duty to disdain for vulgar money-grabbing and realistic patriotism.”

Notice anything wrong? Anything missing? You should. The author, writing quickly as one often does, and therefore carelessly, has jumbled things up, and the result is ambiguity. I am sure he doesn’t mean that the old aristocracy felt “disdain” for “realistic patriotism”, but this is what he actually says. The preposition “for” governs both “vulgar money-grabbing “ and “realistic patriotism”. He should have recast his sentence to read: "the redeeming virtues of the old aristocracy, from a sense of public duty and realistic patriotism to disdain for vulgar money-grabbing”.

Carelessness of this sort is common. I’ve often been guilty of it myself. Usually the meaning is clear, but sometimes not. When in doubt, one should alter the wording to remove the possibility of misunderstanding.

Ambiguity is usually worse than the grammatical mistakes that so often irritate people. If, for example, you write: “I hope you will come to the theatre with James and I”, the use of “I” instead of “me” may grate, but at least the meaning is clear.

Other things which grate may in time become acceptable, may indeed already be acceptable. The split infinitive comes in this category. Having been taught not to split infinitives, I still try not to do so, but I recognise that there is no good, or logical, reason why you shouldn’t write ”to faithfully promise” rather than “to promise faithfully”. In any case it’s evident that infinitives are now split so often and so freely that objection to the practice is futile. Likewise I may still think that “whose” – the possessive of the relative pronoun – should properly be reserved to persons, with “of which” being used for things and abstract nouns, but I concede that this is a lost battle. “Whose” is simply too convenient.

Just as words change their meaning with use, and over time, so grammar too evolves. “Their”, for instance, is no longer only the plural possessive adjective. It is now used as a common one, as in: “Everyone is entitled to their opinion”. “Everyone” is of course singular. So we don’t say “everyone are entitled”, but to use “their” in this sentence avoids writing either “his” or “her”, either of which alone may be condemned as sexist, or “Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion”. So using “their” is now acceptable, even if, strictly speaking, ungrammatical.